ignis aurum probat
by Graffiti My Soul
Summary: "Fire tests gold." Asteria Hawke knows better than most how facing the flames can change you - nobody walks away from dragons untouched.
1. salvation

**IGNIS AURUM PROBAT.**  
><em>"fire tests gold."<em>

**I. SALVATION**

Malcolm names his firstborn Asteria, 'of the sky', and swears that she will know only freedom. He names her for the fierce dragons of old and the nightingale that sometimes sings sweetly in the dark but could never be caged.

Asteria grows up tone-deaf as could be, but when she learns to cast fire he pats her on the head and calls her his little dragon for the next week.

* * *

><p>The templars carry lanterns lit with charmed flames when they go hunting for apostates. The last time she sees her father, he shoves her into a bushes and tells her "Run!" with glints of gold highlighting his hair and eyes.<p>

Terrified, she scrambles through the trees, ignoring the brambles that leave thin, bloody scratches across her arms and legs. Someone yells behind her, but it is not Malcolm, and Asteria does not dare look back.

In her dreams, Malcolm Hawke is just a shadowy figure outlined in light with eyes as bright as sovereigns. After three years, that is how she remembers him.

* * *

><p>They say a Blight has come, the stuff of legends and myths, and that King Cailan and the Grey Wardens have gone to Ostagar to fight the darkspawn. Ostagar is not so far from home – when a regiment of soldiers passes through, Carver swings his greatsword over his shoulder and joins them. Their mother cries.<p>

Bann Ceorlic leaves Lothering soon after, taking the soldiers with him. Word comes that Ostagar has fallen; the king is dead and all the Wardens with him. Quiet Bethany, usually secluded within their home, emerges to help mix healing potions for elder Miriam. Mother packs and frets and paces. Asteria takes Antiope to the gates of the Imperial Highway and waits for her stupid, Maker-damned younger brother.

If he doesn't come back, she will find his ghost in the Fade and _punch it for good measure._

* * *

><p>Carver comes at last. He is pale and sweaty, limbs shaking from the exertion of sprinting full-pace for days on end. "The darkspawn are coming," he pants, barely capable of holding onto his weapon. "We have to go, get Beth and Mother, we need to go <em>now!<em>"

They run.

* * *

><p>Bethany leaps forward, eyes bright. Fire has always been her best element, and Asteria can feel the Fade shatter around her sister as she summons a scorching storm of meteorites upon the Tainted creatures that stagger forth, their skulls and bodies twisted in improbable proportions.<p>

Then the ogre appears, and before Asteria can even move it grabs her sister and crushes her with a single hand. There is only one piercing scream that will join the gold-lit figure in her nightmares before Bethany's mangled body is tossed aside.

Leandra shrieks and Carver roars like a wounded lion at the loss of his twin, but Asteria goes white and silent before diving toward the monster. She forces a crescent of blade-sharp icicles to rise under it, freezing its legs and torso in place, and then leaves it open for their new friend Aveline to shatter.

* * *

><p>Asteria sees her first (and hopefully <em>last<em>) dragon, diving to press herself down against the dry, packed dirt as the beast roars overhead. A wave of sheer, oppressive heat so thick she can barely breathe washes over them, and curling flames reach around the blackened skeletons of darkspawn.

The dragon turns into a woman –_the _Witch, Flemeth herself.

* * *

><p>Asteria bargains.<p>

Maker help her, it's a mad choice - but Bethany is so very, _very_ still and Leandra's hands will not leave her broken body. It feels like nothing matters anymore.

She looks to Carver and tries to draw some sort of ridiculous courage from him. Maybe it works. The Witch of the Wilds laughs.

* * *

><p>Flemeth leaves them in the forests on the edge of Gwaren.<p>

Asteria leads their little group, wrinkling her nose at the scent of sulphur and ash that clings to her clothing. She glances back only once to see that Aveline and Mother are still with them, unwilling to linger on Leandra's face for long. Her mother's sharp, decisive, "_This is all your fault!_" still rings in her ears.

Carver walks next to her, lips stiff. Usually he would fill the silence, but for once he does not speak. Instead, he gazes at the humble fires built by refugees from all across the South, gathered and waiting for a ship to escape upon.

Asteria hears Bethany's scream against the crackle of the golden flames, and has to remind herself that fire – a dragon's fire, as well as her sister's - is what saved them at all.

* * *

><p>This is the end of part I. They get progressively longer and part III is really almost deserving of its own separate story.<p>

IAP covers the majority of DA2 and skims over a lot until Act 3, much of which will be or are covered by the other fics in this verse. (Check profile.) The events from this story are some of the most important in the verse, and helped me figure out Asteria, so I decided to place it first on the list despite chronological issues. Part II will be up shortly, thank you for reading.


	2. destruction

**II. DESTRUCTION**

In Kirkwall, Asteria meets Fenris. He is an elf, with bone-white hair and olive skin, who swings a great sword at least as tall as himself with singular ease. Even splattered with blood, he is beautiful.

He is sharp, and difficult to get along with. They take an instant dislike to each other after his exclamation over magic, but there is a bud of grudging respect that takes root and grows over the next three years.

* * *

><p>He only ever calls her by her surname, even as she lies beneath him on her rumpled sheets, back arched and trembling with need. His kisses aren't gentle – her lips are swollen, and in the morning the faint red imprint of teeth marks along her chin will be rubbed away with vehement determination.<p>

In the morning, he leaves. He takes a red scarf and the Amell crest, and offers his apologies - empty words to her ears that still remember his gasping breaths in the darkness.

* * *

><p>The next time she sees him, the magic-twisted remains of her mother are burning.<p>

Leandra will have no burial - not with the body that Quentin had broken and forced her into. Asteria makes sure of this, even though her preferred elements are ice and lightning. She thinks of Bethany and Templar lanterns to make the flames come, hands shaking all the while.

She doesn't realize she's crying until Fenris covers her eyes for her.

Her mother's ashes smell of incense. She gives the urn to Gamlen.

* * *

><p>They call her "Champion" now, and her friends call her "Hawke". Sometimes she does a double take when reading a letter from Carver because he addresses them to "Asteria" and she's forgotten that's her name.<p>

When Fenris comes back (for real, for_ever)_, she asks him to call her by her given name.

"My father named me," she tells him. "I don't want to forget that."

After all, she can't even remember the color of Malcolm's eyes - just the glint of gold.

* * *

><p>Asteria knows that her eyes are not like mother's were, and she hopes they are from the father whose face grows less distinct each year. Her eyes are light green, like sun bleached grass or a sliver of pale emerald, and they are the one feature she is especially proud of.<p>

She lets Isabela line them in kohl one night before going to the Hanged Man for drinks with their friends, and Fenris can't help but stare until they are about to head home and she looks at him with a wicked smile. When they wake, she giggles at the streaks of black smeared on his skin and helps him wash it off. "You're a beautiful woman without help," he tells her, and means it.

"Flatterer," she laughs, but a soft blush creeps up her cheeks as she kisses him again. It's always nice to hear.

* * *

><p>The tension between the mages and the templars grows with every day. Anders is distraught over the destruction of the mage underground, and so she ends up dragging him from his clinic more and more often – if only to keep him from that blasted manifesto. It's difficult to identify the line between Justice and her friend now, and she's not the only one to notice it.<p>

"The abomination is _dangerous_, Asteria," Fenris growls. His grip is loose enough that his gauntlets only pinch her shoulders, so she knows he is mostly worried and not so very angry yet. "At least stop taking him and the blood mage out together- or take me with you - "

"Merrill and Anders are my _friends_," she protests. "I know you don't get along with them, so there's no point in getting all three of you upset –" his face twists and he scowls viciously before shoving her away and stomping out of her house.

The next day, she does not take him with her to check on the Bone Pit. Varric and Merrill volunteer, while Isabela tags along for the fun of it.

* * *

><p><em>HEAT HEAT HEAT<em>

_**the world is on fire and –**_

**screaming –****  
><strong>**SCREAMING –**

"DAISY, HEAL HER!"

"I'M TRYING-"

Hawke doesn't realize the voice beneath the sound of crackling flesh is her own, even as the wailing grows more inhumane in its pain.

Everything is so bright it burns.

She closes her eyes.

* * *

><p>She wakes up to "Hawke!" and "Oh, <em>lethallan.<em>" They are familiar voices. But not the one she wants to hear.

"Where are we?" Asteria asks, groping wildly. There is something on her face-

"Stop _moving,_" comes another voice from her left. It is hoarse from sheer exhaustion. "You'll undo all my work if you keep that up." Anders sounds more tired and more human than he has in weeks. "What were you thinking, taking on a High Dragon without a healer or a warrior with you?"

"What were you thinking, taking on a High Dragon _at all!_" shouts a rich voice on her opposite side. It's the one she's been waiting for, and she reaches her hand out in its direction.

"Fenris? Fenris! – Someone take this blasted thing off my face, I can't see anything-"A cool, calloused hands with long fingers clasps her own and squeezes it tightly.

"You cannot imagine...what I thought when they brought you here – " his voice is choked, half with anger and half with fresh relief, and she tries to smile for him; but the motion brings a sharp twinge of pain to her cheek.

"We can't take the bandages off Hawke," Varric tells her. "You're still...healing." The pause in his sentence makes a chill run down her spine. It is the same pause he uses before telling the part of the story where bad things happen. She doesn't like hearing it outside of a narrative.

"How...how long have I been out?"

"A week," Anders tells her grimly. "Better than it might have been. Isabela dumped a bunch of healing potions on your wounds while they were bringing you, that's probably all that saved you." She gapes at him, trying to ignore the subtle clench of Ferris's fingers around her own.

"A _week! _You must be jok – oh – _oh_," Asteria gasps, a wave of pain and despair washing over her.

**_She remembers the fire._**

The world had gone up in flames with her at the epicenter of it, burning so brightly she felt as if she was staring into the sun itself - or the stars were self-destructing against her eyes.

"How...how bad is it?" she whispers. She doesn't dare let go of Fenris's hand and digs the other one into the sheets – soft, fine linen, which signifies she was in her own room at least. Nobody besides her nearest and dearest to see...to see whatever has become of her.

"I'm...I'm so sorry, lethallan," Merrill murmurs, her usual sweet accent tinged with remorse. "There was no lyrium – and I'm so poor at healing-"

"_Why _did you take the blood mage instead of me, Hawke? If I had been there...I could have saved more, I could have-"

"There is no point in talking about what you _could _have done, mage," Fenris snarls. The 'mage' makes Asteria recoil a little too, but not enough for Fenris to notice. "She is...she is..."

"I'll be blunt, Hawke," her dwarven companion says gently. "Your left eye...it's gone."

* * *

><p><em>gonegonegone<em>

Blind?

She is a **mage**. A mage could not afford to be _blind_– she needed to be _perfect _in everything else to make up for it –

_gone, her father's eyes again –_

* * *

><p>The silence stretches for a long moment after Varric's announcement.<p>

"Oh," she finally manages. It is the barest of sounds, only the slightest breath of air. "I...okay."

"Lethallan?" Merrill asks from the end of her bed. If Hawke tries hard enough, she has the vaguest sense of her companions – Merrill smells like soft, fertile soil and trees, while Anders feels like a piece of elfroot-scented Fade. Varric's presence leaves the faint taste of dull ale and Bianca's metal in the air, and Fenris –

Fenris...will not want her any longer.

In one stroke, she has become useless and a danger all at once. The thought makes her go cold and numb, and her grip on his hand slackens. Hawke doesn't know if he notices.

"I'd like to be alone," she says quietly, and waits until the soil and elfroot and ale leave. Fenris lets go of her hand, but she can still feel – hear? smell? him lingering by the doorway.

"Please, Fenris."

He leaves, and shuts the door behind him.

When Varric tells the story, Hawke never cries.

* * *

><p>In another week, Anders tells her that she can take the bandages off.<p>

"It might be...a shock," he warns her. "I've done my best, but...dragonfire to the face, Hawke. It's a miracle you're alive at all," the healer shakes his head.

She lets him lead her towards the bathroom, and he turns her to face the mirror before closing the door. Asteria unwraps the cloth around her head with shaking fingers. It will not be so bad, she tells herself. She has seen darkspawn, and refugees in Darktown who were mauled during the Blight, and – surely, it cannot be _so _bad.

The white linen falls, and even the soft glow of the hanging lamp overhead stings her eyes. They feel raw, and she instinctively lifts a hand to rub at them before freezing in place when the skin at her fingertips is not the soft flesh she is used to feeling.

Asteria opens her right eye, and stares hard at the mirror.

It might be possible, she thinks in that initial moment of shock, to create a topography map of her own face. The scar tissue rises and falls in crests like a mountain range, ending in sharp peaks that are beginning to crumble. The skin beneath is vividly red and torn, and the edges of her left eyelid are thankfully scarred shut. At least she will not have to wake to a gaping eye socket in her own reflection.

Her mahogany locks, once falling in luscious waves around her shoulders to the envy of every woman her age in Hightown, have been chopped in a ragged, haphazard cut around her chin. It emphasizes the angles of her face and her newly jagged cheek, strands only just long enough to tuck behind her ears. Her reflection blurs behind the rush of tears that gather in her eyes – _eye._

Hawke tries impossibly hard to gather her sobs and push them away into some place deep down where they will not be discovered. She is _not _vain, has never been a classic beauty – but even the remaining eye has a sickly yellow tinge to it, no longer the lovely green that she had secretly always thought of as her connection to the father who she cannot quite remember. Yellow eyes like a monster. Maybe that's all she is now.

At last, the face she wears is that of a war-hardened Champion.

Asteria Hawke lies in ashes.

* * *

><p>And this ends part II. Part III is in progress and will be much longer than the first two. Can a Champion - a <em>mage<em> Champion - still be worth anything while half blinded?

We'll see.

Thank you for reading this far - reviews, comments and constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated!


	3. cauterization

**III. CAUTERIZATION**

Without Varric's help, the news travels slowly – if at all. For a short while, Hawke considers the possibility of becoming a social recluse and somehow hiding the state of her face from the rest of the city. It seems almost plausible – Bodahn has done well at keeping the curious neighbors away, and she does not lack for company.

There are always the weekly visits from Anders - the only one who treats her the same way that he would have before; with a harried bedside manner and a quick flash of white teeth for her feeble jokes. She can see the faint lines of stress and how lean his frame is when he finally lets Orana take his dingy jacket to wash. Once, maybe after the first time Fenris left, Hawke might have wanted – even asked him – for more than friendship. But the manifesto is his lover now, and so there is no warmth at his touch when he holds her arm to lead her down the stairs.

The stairs are her first challenge. Her eye tells her where the edge of each step is, but it is no longer honest. The first time she tries her foot lands an inch too far and she falls, quickly twisting her body sideways to prevent her head from hitting the wood.

Now Anders places his hand on her elbow to steady her. "You've gone up and down these stairs a thousand times," he reminds her. "Don't keep looking down. You know how to do this already."

She does – she knows it is eleven steps down and that the third from the bottom creaks no matter how lightly you step on it. Her hands can run along the banister and find the place where Isabela left her carvings.

Hawke digs her nails into her palm for a short second – and then takes the first step down. Then another one. Three, four, five...

_Creak_.

Nine, ten, eleven –

And her bare feet touch carpet. She exhales a breath she didn't even realize she was holding before turning to her side to smile at Anders – who is...still at the top of the stairs. She hadn't even noticed when he let go -

Anders gives her an approving smile and a cheery little wave. "You did great! At the very least, we'll have you moving around your house like always. We'll deal with the rest a little at a time."

Anders can't come every day, and Hawke wouldn't dare ask it of him. As hard as he is trying to help her, she knows his nerves are frayed from the pressure that Justice is putting on him. The spirit holds little affection for her – she is too indecisive, too unwilling to put the world in black or white and help the mages no matter what. Hawke's too selfish for Justice.

She rarely admits it, and only to herself, but she is. She's selfish, and she's proud, and so she hides in her own estate, pulls the curtains of her bedroom windows closed, and forces Anders to leave his clinic once a week to see how she's doing.

* * *

><p>Isabela and Merrill come as well – not in a regular pattern like Anders, but often enough and usually together. On the first visit, the pirate captain pulls out a silken black square with thin straps hanging off it and throws it at Asteria – who fumbles, much to Isabela's surprise, and fails to catch it. She picks it up off the floor and holds it up, one eye squinted in curiosity.<p>

"What is this thing? Please tell me it's not something dirty, Varric already dropped off the drafts for his latest edition of Hard in Hightown for some 'light reading'."

"It's not," Merrill confirms, hopping onto Hawke's bed and giving her hand a little squeeze. "She told me it's an eye patch, the kind real pirates wear!" The Rivaini chuckles and points to her own face, bare except for the kohl lining her eyes.

"Not _all_ pirates wear them, kitten. But they're better than peg legs and if anyone can make an eye patch look good, it'll be Hawke." She gestures loosely towards the scrap of cloth. "You tie the strings behind your head to hold it there. Yes, just like that sweet thing."

Hawke quickly pulls off the bandages wrapped around her head and turns around, letting Merrill twist the strings into a small, neat bow. A bubble of excitement wells up inside her, something she hasn't felt in weeks. "So? What do you think?"

"_Dangerous_," Isabela purrs, "But sexy. Very sexy. Keep the patch."

The Dalish runs her thin fingertips over the raised edges of scar tissue that escape the small patch of silk. "Yes, I like it. You should wear it, Hawke."

The auburn haired woman flushes, but a little smile tugs at the corners of her lips. "Alright, I'll trust you two. Thanks, Isabela."

On another day, they stay awhile longer, sprawled across the crimson covers of Hawke's bedspread. "We're having a round of Wicked Grace tonight," Isabela tells her, knowing Hawke's answer before she gives it. "You should come."

"I'll think about it," she says, but they both know it will be just that - _thinking_.

"The weather is so pretty lately," Merrill comments, hugging a pillow to her chest. "We ought to go out for a picnic, find somewhere nice without anyone trying to kill us..." The elf trails off, reaching over to prop up her staff from where it is sliding down to the ground.

Hawke smiles wanly and looks at her hands. "We should, sometime soon. That would be nice." They both try to pretend that this is temporary, as if it's a cold and she only has to wait it out. Like things will be normal again, "sometime soon", and everything can go back to the way it used to be.

She loves them for trying, but this is one thing she can't just deny away.

"I'm sorry, I promised Varric I'd stop wandering out late," Merrill says an hour later. "I don't see why, since nothing ever _happens_, but I think I'll go home now."

"I'll walk you back kitten," the pirate slides off the bed, thigh-high boots hitting the floor with a low thud. "Hawke?"

Hawke laughs, "I'll walk you as far as the door?" As if it were a joke, rather than _please don't make me go outside please don't let anyone see me_ –

"Good enough," Isabela shrugs, taking both their arms and dragging them downstairs. Hawke stumbles, but her friends pretend not to notice, and she grabs her stave from where it leans against the railing to hold onto.

"Thank you for visiting," Hawke says at the entrance. She pulls her hood up over her head and stares at the ivy crawling up the walls, not daring to meet the curious glances of Hightown passer-bys. "Give Varric my regards."

Merrill, turning back to smile, freezes midstep and opens her mouth, but Isabela grabs her by the arm and squeezes gently. "Of course Hawke," the Rivaini answers quickly. "But you could tell him yourself." The flash of white that caught Merrill's attention goes unnoticed by the Champion – it's on her far left, and so she doesn't suspect that anything is there.

"Soon," she promises, and then ducks her head to close the door behind her as she returns inside.

"Fenris!" Merrill blurts out as soon as Hawke's footsteps fade away.

Isabela smiles slyly. "Now Merrill, you're ruining his attempts to play rogue. Is this where you've been instead of your mansion?"

The tattooed elf emerges from the corner where he'd been skulking, scowling slightly. "Perhaps," he admits, crossing his arms. "Bodahn does well, but some have needed further convincing to mind their own business." His eyes drift towards the door, where the Amell symbol is emblazoned into the wood, while one hand lands upon the crest at his belt with a matching design.

"...She doesn't know, does she," the elven mage says softly. "She'd like to know you're here Fenris, I know she would –"

"No," he shakes his head, lowering his gaze to the stone paved street. "I...cannot. She does not wish to see me."

Isabela sighs, drumming her fingers on one bare thigh. "You've got it wrong. She doesn't want _you_ to see _her_."

* * *

><p>The temporary peace is broken when the Templars come to her door.<p>

"Where is the Champion?"

"Serrah, my mistress is unwell, please, do not disturb her –"

"Nobody has seen her leave this house for over three weeks. Knight Commander Meredith has given the Champion leniency despite her use of magic, but if the Champion is under suspicion -

"Enchantment?"

"No, no my boy, this is not the time – find Antiope, you like the nice doggy, don't you Sandal, take him to Messere Hawke's room and stay there-"

"Bodahn? Bodahn, what's all the noise?" Hawke's voice comes from the top of the stairs, accompanied by Antiope's wild barking at the intruders.

"Hawke!" Sandal cheers; stumbling up with the stairs with large, clumsy steps. "And Doggy!" The mabari jumps forward to nudge the young dwarf gently in the stomach,

"Can you take Antiope on a walk Sandal? For me," Hawke asks gently, bending down on one knee to face the young dwarf on equal level. The enchanter nods excitedly, curling his fingers into Antiope's collar and leading (or prodding) the mabari out the servant's side entrance.

Knight Captain Cullen steps forward, looking grim. "Champion. I apologize for the intrusion, but Meredith sent us to...see your condition. You have not been seen in the city for some time. Are you ill?"

The Champion laughs weakly. She wears the armor that Varric retrieved from the dragon's carcass for her, an affair of metal and wolf fur pauldrons, and the hood of it is pulled up over her head. "Not illness, Knight Captain. An injury, and vanity I suppose." She beckons him closer, and then drops the hood.

The scars look even more terrifying than they did the first time she looked herself in the mirror. The edges have healed, but the remaining skin is dry and leathery, patches of dark red and ashy black, and with small gaps that reveal the yellow-white flesh beneath. Her left eye has a patch over it, but veined white scars stretch from beneath the scrap of cloth. Cullen can guess at the damage the eye has suffered – it's likely irreversible.

Still, he asks. "It cannot be healed? I know...I remember the Darktown healer from the Ferelden Circle. He was a prodigy, certainly better than anyone we have at the Gallows now. There's nothing more he could do?"

Even as he speaks, some of his men come up behind him, wanting to see the Champion's new face for themselves. Cullen quickly orders them to wait in the next room. Hawke doesn't deserve to lose what little dignity she has left.

"No. There's...nothing _there _to be healed. He's done his best, but dragons and their fire are a sort of wild magic all their own."

"How bad is the impairment?"

"It's...it's not as bad as I expected. I've practiced – I can move around easily enough now, at least in my own house. It's a challenge to judge things up close now, I suppose." She lifts up one bandaged hand, injured from a kitchen accident. "Moving objects are harder...maybe if I could stay out of range in battle. I'd have to train."

He frowns, wondering how the blindness will affect Meredith's decision to leave the Champion free. It depends most, he thinks, on what the nobles of Kirkwall decide – whether this would be seen as a weakness or as a heroic injury. "I advise," Cullen says after a long pause, "That you have no shame in your scars. Few slay a High Dragon and live. You should be proud of that."

* * *

><p>A corpse greets her feet when Asteria steps into Fenris' home.<p>

"Lovely. A welcome mat," she grimaces, lifting her boots from the rotting flesh. It makes a squelching sort of sound that makes her cringe, and she climbs the steps two at a time trying to rid the thought of it from her mind. "Fenris? Are you...there?"

"Here," his voice comes from behind, and she jumps, spinning on her heel. It's always a little unnerving how silently he can creep through the shadows – if not for the ivory lines that twist over his body, sometimes Asteria thinks that Fenris has missed his true calling. "You look...well." He's in his armor as usual; lyrium tattoos dim in the darkness.

Her stomach twists and she answers him without thinking, sounding (and feeling) entirely bitter. "As good as can be expected with this face, I suppose?" She shrinks back, anger and embarrassment coming over her as a rush of heat that prickles at the nape of her neck.

"That's not what I – " Fenris burst out, darting closer before pulling back, stiff and wary. "_Malum_, do you think so little of me that you think I would say such a thing?"

"...I - no. You wouldn't..._say_ that," Asteria admits softly, swallowing hard. "I just – "

_Come on. You're the bloody Champion of Kirkwall. _

"I only have one eye left," she continues steadily, pacing the words and struggling to keep her voice even. "I'm a mage, and I'm half-blind. It's...I can't promise I won't mess up," she whispers. "I'm _trying_, but I'll be a danger, and I know that you might not want to..." _stay_, goes unsaid, since the Tevinter finally clasps his hand over her mouth.

"You told me to go, and I did," he says. "Do you truly believe I would abandon you for an _injury_?"

The metal is cold against her lips, steel with the faint taste of bloody iron and sharp enough to shred her skin like butter if he wasn't being gentle. "It's not like it's a broken arm, Fenris!" She's tired of people trying to pretend it's something that will pass with time. "I'm _ugly _now, you can't possibly-"

"I once asked if it did not bother you to walk beside a slave," he growls, leaning forward. His eyes are vividly; impossibly green against the tan of his skin and the shock of white hair that fringes them. "And you asked me if I was ashamed to accompany a Ferelden refugee – a mage. It did not bother me then and it does not now. _Beseve na dorus, bese formosa._"

Her Tevene is far from perfect – all she knows are the basics, enough to recognize "proud" and "beautiful" and that's entirely enough.

It makes her feel like she's 15 again, freshly in love with the most perfect person in Thedas.

Asteria pushes his hand away and closes the space between them. She misses, at first. Her lips brush against his cheek, a chaste peck compared to what she _wants_.

She grits her teeth in determination and closes her eye. In the darkness, the clang of his gauntlet on tile rings out and a hesitant, bare hand curls itself around the back of her neck. The lyrium tickles. Fenris tugs her closer even as she trails soft, airy kisses along his jaw. They meet in the middle, as careful and exploring as the first time despite the comforting familiarity of it.

On other days, she would give in to the warmth blooming under her skin, but tonight it's not what she wants – the ache in the cavity of her chest still hasn't quite disappeared, and she's not sure if this isn't somehow, secretly, all a trick of the Fade.

He pulls back first, for air, but she collects a handful of his tunic in shaking hands. "Wait – please don't go – "Her breath comes short, panic rising thick and uncomfortable in her throat. She'll take a Fade dream, even -

"I am yours," he reminds her softly, his voice low. Armor drops to the floor – a well-worn steel chest plate, a second gauntlet, a pauldron, her boots – as he steadily steers her towards the single clean bedroom in the house.

When he finally pulls her down next to him, she curls up against the warmth of his skin and the low hum of lyrium, rough hands gingerly stroking the small of her back through her tunic. She feels small in his arms – safe.

Her breathing stutters as he reaches for the string tied under her hair and pulls it loose. Isabela's gift flutters to the floor and Fenris' eyes are piercing green as they stare at her face.

She swallows hard, and does not look away.

He cups her burned cheek in his palm and strokes the scarred flesh with the pad of his thumb, pressing a kiss over her left eyelid. "Do not hide yourself from me," he asks quietly.

The next weeks won't be easy.

But Asteria nods, and never wears the patch when it's just the two of them.

* * *

><p><strong><em>MEANWHILE, IN ANSBURG:<em>**

"Did you hear about the Champion of Kirkwall?"

"_Such _a shame, I hear she was a pretty thing too."

"What, exactly, have you heard about the Champion?"

The two merchants turn from their conversation to the young man clad in the Grey Warden uniform. It isn't uncommon to see them in the city when their Keep is so close by, but they rarely interact with the common folk.

"She's dead, killed by a High Dragon! They say it slew her with its dying breath – monstrous beast, killed hundreds of people before she got to it. I met someone on the road who's just been from Kirkwall, the hide and bones were dragged through the streets by some of the Champion's companions."

"Serah, are you feeling alright?"

"I – a _High Dragon_ in _Kirkwall?_ Surely this is another piece of gossip, dragons are rare enough these days –"

"Nay, not in the city, Serrah. At the Bone Pit, that old slaver's mine up along the coast."

If possible, the Warden turns even paler. "I...Thank you both for telling me, I need to go." He spins on his heel and half-runs in the direction of the Keep, leaving two bewildered men behind him.

"Strange bunch, the Wardens."

"True 'nough...don't they say the Champion's brother is a Warden, though?"

They turn their heads and study the receding back of blue and silver with wide eyes.

"You don't think..."

"Poor lad."

* * *

><p>Okay, so I'm a horrible updater...<p>

All my thanks to **Adalae Amell** (with a period in between - for some reason, FF won't let me type her username like that!) for helping me with ideas, getting the flow of this chapter together, and generally motivating me to write the draft at all. It just took me another two months to edit it :X

I did some research into how losing only one eye affects you, and most accounts I read said that they were able to adjust after a period of time, although distance judgement became slightly off for objects that were closer to them and very challenging in fast-paced situations (such as sports.) I tried my best to base Asteria's situation and experience off of what I read, and don't meant to offend anyone at all if I've gotten something wrong. If you have any suggestions for how I can make it more accurate, I'd be happy to hear them!

I have the next (and most likely last) chapter planned out, but I'm not going to make any promises as to when it'll be out. Soon, with any luck.

Constructive crit and general reviews would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!


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